Filmmakers screen new HBO documentary in Norfolk

NORFOLK

A select audience on Monday night got to see an upcoming HBO documentary and question the artists who made it. 

“The Black List, Vol. 2” won’t be seen on television until Thursday, but filmmakers Elvis Mitchell and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders brought the movie to Norfolk as part of a tour that included San Francisco, Boston and New York.

“It’s important for us to see the film with an audience,” Mitchell said before the screening at Chrysler Hall.

Mitchell, a public radio host and former New York Times film critic, started working with his friend Greenfield-Sanders, a celebrated portrait artist, on the first “Black List” documentary in 2006.

“We sat down at a restaurant in the East Village and by the end of lunch we had the concept mapped out,” Greenfield-Sanders said.

The films explore what it means to be African-American in the 21st century through interviews conducted by Mitchell, off-screen, in Greenfield-Sanders’ New York apartment. The first version featured Sean Combs, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Chris Rock and Toni Morrison, among others.

“In many documentaries African-Americans are portrayed as dependent or victims” Mitchell said. “We sensed a void there.”

For the second film Mitchell spoke with writer and actor Tyler Perry, artist Kara Walker, Anglican Bishop Barbara Harris, actor Laurence Fishburne, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and rapper and producer RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, among others.

“We thought this was going to be a more serious film,” Greenfield-Sanders said. “But as we’re watching it with audiences we’re noticing a lot of laughter.”

The crowd at Chrysler Hall Monday night laughed, clapped and expressed agreement as interview subjects spoke on topics from the civil rights movement to life in the ghetto to expectations placed on African-American artists.

Walker, whose work plays with visual stereotypes, drew a huge laugh with this line - “As a black artist you could paint a wall of smiley faces and people would ask, why are you so mad?”

The filmmakers said they would like to continue the series with a third documentary.

Cox Communications senior vice-president Gary McCollum said his organization and the Urban League of Hampton Roads are working on a local version of “The Black List” to debut later this year.